


Safe and Sound

by hongbab



Category: VIXX
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 17:27:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9775103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hongbab/pseuds/hongbab
Summary: He falls asleep in one of Wonshik’s T-shirts, and his pillow pressed hard against his stomach, crying tears he thought he didn’t have anymore.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Recommended song: Taylor Swift feat. The Civil Wars - [Safe & Sound](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzhAS_GnJIc)

_I remember tears streaming down your face_

_When I said, "I'll never let you go"_

_When all those shadows almost killed your light_

_I remember you said, "Don't leave me here alone"_

_But all that's dead and gone and passed tonight_

 

 

The steam that floats up from the hot soup stings Hakyeon's eyes, but that fact barely registers in the most hidden part of his mind. He doesn't blink just stares down at the food in the plate in front of him.

"Eat."

Hakyeon lifts his head, heavy as lead. Taekwoon is glaring at him as intensely as he can while he reaches out a spoon for Hakyeon to take. 

"I'm not hungry."

"Yes, you are."

Hakyeon glances down at the soup again, seeing the blurred outlines of his face on its surface. Taekwoon sighs, and takes the seat next to him, dipping the spoon into the soup, lifting it up to Hakyeon's mouth.

"You can't be serious," Hakyeon grumbles in a raspy voice, looking into Taekwoon's hard eyes.

"If this is the only way I can make you eat, I am."

"I'm not a baby."

"You have certainly been acting like one lately," Taekwoon replies softly, with a small edge to his words, not even sharp, it only bruises Hakyeon's feelings.

"It's been more than _two months_ ," Hakyeon croaks out.

"I know," Taekwoon says, putting the spoon back into the soup. "But he's okay. I've never been as sure about anything in my life as I am about this."

"You're lying."

"I can't lie. You always tell me I can't."

Hakyeon stares daggers at him, tries to find the glint in Taekwoon's eyes that might betray him. Taekwoon's eyes are clear like a forest spring though, and Hakyeon oddly feels defeated.

"Someone would have contacted you long ago if—" Taekwoon cuts himself off, probably because of the miserable look Hakyeon gives him. "If something had happened. So he's okay. Now, eat."

Hakyeon takes the spoon with a wildly trembling hand. He manages to keep down half of the portion Taekwoon gave him, and when he's done, he watches Taekwoon put the leftover in the fridge that, apart from the soup, contains a measly amount of food, most of which has already gone bad. Taekwoon also does the washing up, and cleans up what he destroyed in the kitchen.

"Do you want me to stay?" he asks when he's done.

"No."

"Will you be all right?"

"Just go!"

Taekwoon gives him a look, but Hakyeon is on his feet already, feeling drained, and he shuffles back into the bedroom to fall on the double bed, face shoved into the two sets of messy sheets. He hears the front door open and then close, the lock turning when Taekwoon leaves, and the lump in his throat crawls up into his mouth, making him let out a sob.

His eyes feel dry—he doesn't know if he has enough tears for another crying session.

 Up he sits against the headboard, taking his phone from the nightstand. It says it's quarter to ten in the evening, and he accepts the fact, because time doesn't mean anything to him anymore but that the ache in his chest grows with every passing minute, slowly but surely killing him from inside.

He opens the album, tapping on a random picture: Wonshik, playing with Taekwoon's nephew, both of them full of smiles, and Wonshik is glowing like he always does. He swipes to the right, revealing a selfie of him and Wonshik in the hotel room where they stayed some months ago on Jeju, celebrating their 4th anniversary; Wonshik is making a face at the camera as Hakyeon pecks his cheek. The next picture is another selfie, a lot more intimate one that Wonshik took with Hakyeon's phone: they're lying in the bed Hakyeon is now sitting on, kissing, both of their eyes closed and Hakyeon's left hand on Wonshik's neck; Wonshik's eyelashes are fanned out on top of his cheek, and there's a small pimple on his chin that Hakyeon stares at now like it's the thing he misses most when he thinks about Wonshik. Hakyeon’s fingers are ghosting on his lips like he can re-enact the kiss, but a second later he presses his entire hand on his mouth as he tries to keep his screams in, warm, prickly tears falling on the screen, making it hard to swipe.

He almost cries out when he sees the last picture he took of Wonshik before he left. It's of Wonshik in his uniform, camo hat, jacket and trousers, new boots, and a duffle bag on his shoulder. He's saluting to Hakyeon in the main hall of the airport, a tiny smile playing on his lips, but his eyes are shining wetly.

Hakyeon throws his phone across the room. It hits the closet, and falls onto the wooden floor with a loud snap, but he doesn't get up to check if it's still in one piece. He slides down on the bed, hugging Wonshik's pillow to his body, trying to remember how it smelled before it took in Hakyeon's own scent, losing every bit of Wonshik it had.

He falls asleep in one of Wonshik's T-shirts, and his pillow pressed hard against his stomach, crying tears he thought he didn't have anymore.

 

It's apparently Hongbin's turn to check on him the next day, because when he wakes up, the boy is perched in the armchair by the window—the armchair Wonshik used to sit in, his legs pulled up, brow furrowed, a pen in his hand and a notebook leant against his knees, writing lyrics he later followed with music and played for Hakyeon on his keyboard. Hongbin is immersed in tapping away on his own phone, probably playing some kind of game, and only looks up when Hakyeon is already sitting on the bed, hardly seeing anything from the dry tears in and the puffiness around his eyes.

"Good morning, sunshine!" Hongbin greets him cheerfully—too fake—, dimples digging deep into his cheeks. "It's 1 p.m., and I brought you roasted beef, so I can heat it up for you, if you want."

"I'm not hungry," Hakyeon whispers, because that's all he's capable of. All of his joints hurt, he feels weak.

"Mm," Hongbin murmurs. "Taekwoon-hyung told me you'd say that, but, alas, I don't care if you're hungry or not. You need to eat, and I'll make you eat."

"I feel like puking all over the place," Hakyeon says with as much venom dripping from his voice as he can muster. "And if you guys keep treating me like a fucking tamagotchi you need to raise, I'm going to puke on you, too."

Hongbin arches an eyebrow, seemingly unable to react any other way. Good, Hakyeon thinks. He just wants to hurt whoever he can. He wants them to leave him the fuck alone. Everyone.

"Why do you think being rude to me will solve your situation?" Hongbin asks, lowering his hand, locking his phone screen. "It's just not logical for you to be lying around in bed and trying to starve yourself to death. You're such a... you're honestly the biggest idiot I've ever come across, hyung."

"Shut the fuck up."

Hakyeon pulls the duvet over his head and lies back down, waiting for Hongbin to leave. He doesn't want to deal with a disrespectful kid when he feels like shit anyway. Sleep will be the solution. Maybe he manages to stay asleep forever.

As soon as he closes his eyes, there are fingers around both of his ankles and he yelps when Hongbin pulls him down the bed with a forceful yank.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Hakyeon yells from the floor, pushing himself up on his arms. "Do you want to pull my legs out of their socket?!"

"What does that matter to you when you apparently want to die anyway?" Hongbin shrugs his shoulders, both of his hands on his hips.

"Why can't you just leave this damned place?"

"Because you're mourning a person who might not even be dead!"

Hakyeon's breath hitches in his throat, tears filling his eyes at the abrupt utterance of the words he's considered taboo so far. Hongbin shakes his head like he can't even comprehend what Hakyeon is doing, and sits down on the floor, crossing his legs. Hakyeon sits up as well, leaning against the leg of the bed, feeling too shaky to stay sitting on his own. Hongbin draws patterns into the lint and dirt on the floor Hakyeon hasn't cleaned for God knows how many weeks with his index finger, and says: "Do you remember when Wonshik told us he wanted to join the army?" Hakyeon nods. "Do you remember what he said when we asked why?"

" _Because I want to protect those I love most._ "

"And?"

"That was all."

"No," Hongbin shakes his head, his eyes fixated on his finger as he draws shapeless figures onto the floorboards. "He also said he wanted us to go on with our life if something happened to him. Don't you remember?"

Hakyeon's heart starts throbbing faster, and the pain building in his chest reaches his eyes.

He's crying again.

"I don't want to talk about this."

"So you do remember," Hongbin nods, looking up at Hakyeon. "At that time Jaehwan cracked a joke so that we wouldn't take Wonshik seriously, but he was. Serious, I mean."

"I don't want to talk about this!"

Hakyeon's voice becomes too high-pitched, ending in a small scream. Hongbin notices his running nose, and gives him a tissue.

"Do you think you're the only one who falls asleep crying so often, hyung?" Hongbin murmurs softly. His voice sounds weak, and Hakyeon feels just a little bit surprised by that. "I miss him, too. Taekwoon misses him, too. Jaehwan and Sanghyuk miss him, too. His parents and Jiwon miss him, too. We're all fucking worried about him, and you don't even— you don't even know how scared I am that something happened to him. And I know that they would have notified us someway if that was the case, but even if I know it here," he points at his temple, "I'm still not reassured here," he puts his hand on his chest, above his heart. "I know how you feel, but Wonshik is alive, he has to be alive, and when he gets home and finds a skeleton in the bed instead of a living, breathing person, he'll be very fucking sad."

Hakyeon lets out a chuckle. His eyes widen, and he stares at an equally flabbergasted Hongbin as he starts laughing, loud and boisterous—his eyes fall shut when he throws his head back. Hongbin giggles in the background, but Hakyeon only senses that as the low murmur of the wind—his own laughter rings inside his head, clear and happy. He gasps for air when the urge dies down, glancing at Hongbin.

"What even are you laughing at?" Hongbin asks, grinning from ear to ear.

"I just—" Hakyeon wipes the tears of joy from the corners of his eyes. "I just imagined how he would look if he found a skeleton in the bed. And his face looked funny in my head."

A small chuckle bubbles up from his throat again, but the next one turns into a sob, and he's weeping again. Hongbin scoots closer on the floor, wrapping his arms around Hakyeon's shaking shoulders, awkwardly patting his back at first, but when Hakyeon grips his shirt and buries his face in his chest, Hongbin's hold tightens around him, keeps him together.

"He hasn't— hasn't written a single letter in t-two months," Hakyeon stutters, soaking Hongbin’s clothes in tears.

"He didn't have time," Hongbin says, although he sounds unsure. Hakyeon's nails dig into his flesh under the fabric, because he doesn't want to hear Hongbin's doubtful tone—he wouldn't be able to deal with that, even if he knows more than half of the things his friends try to comfort him with are lies. "He'll be back soon, I promise."

 

“Do we really need to watch this?”

“You’re such a fucking coward, hyung.”

Jaehwan whimpers as the badly masked actress turns up on the screen again, her eyes rolling back into her head, long, oily black hair covering half of her face. Sanghyuk pushes Jaehwan off himself, almost knocking the beer out of Hakyeon’s hand, but Hakyeon doesn’t even budge.

“This is so boring,” Hongbin moans, lying down on the rug by the others’ feet.

Taekwoon, on Hakyeon’s left, starts nodding slowly, with largely exaggerated moves of his head.

“Okay, you know what?” Sanghyuk bends forward on Hakyeon’s other side, looking first at Hongbin, and then Taekwoon. “I told you guys to tell me what you’d want to watch, and you were like ‘whatever you think is okay’. Those of you who actually replied to my text, at least. So shut up and enjoy or go home.”

Hongbin mumbles something about Sanghyuk’s brattiness, but Taekwoon doesn’t say anything, so they continue watching the horror film Hakyeon hasn’t even paid attention to. The alcohol fills his skin with warmth, but he strangely feels cold inside—numb to the hysterically screaming children on the screen and the slight nudges he gets from Sanghyuk when Jaehwan curls into the boy’s side.

At some point Taekwoon receives a call, and he walks out of Sanghyuk’s living room to take it, only to storm through the flat barely a minute later, telling everyone he would be back for them to take them home as the current chauffeur for the gang.

“I liked him better when he was single,” Jaehwan sighs.

“Jealous much?” Hongbin asks from where he’s still lying on the rug.

“We don’t even know who called him.” Sanghyuk comments.

“I think that’s pretty obvious.” Hongbin murmurs, half asleep.

The screen soon goes black as the film ends, and Sanghyuk stands up to turn the lights on. Hongbin sits up, squinting in the light, looking at Hakyeon like he’s checking if he’s still alive, and when he wants to open his mouth to say something, Taekwoon steps into the flat.

“Can we leave now?” Hakyeon asks.

Taekwoon nods, a sly smile curling his lips up.

“What’s it, hyung?” Sanghyuk inquires, smirking. “Had a quickie with your girlfriend?”

“Better,” Taekwoon replies, his gaze shifting to Hakyeon, confusing all of them.

Hakyeon resists the urge to press his hands on his ears when they walk out the door in the middle of a huge ruckus that Taekwoon’s mysteriously good mood has caused, and stands by Taekwoon’s car when Sanghyuk steps to him, hugging him tight without a word. Hakyeon lets himself get pulled in, because it’s so rare that Sanghyuk shows any kind of affection to him of his own free will—even if Hakyeon feels somewhat indignant over the fact that he gets treated like a china doll by all of his friends.

“Take care,” Sanghyuk murmurs.

Hakyeon nods, taking in the scent of Sanghyuk’s shirt, and a tiny smile breaks out on his lips against Sanghyuk’s shoulder when he smells the mild baby powder scented fabric softener that is just so Sanghyuk despite the boy being far from a baby anymore. He feels a hand on his back, and when Sanghyuk unfolds his arms around him, he finds Jaehwan patting his shoulder blade.

“Are you not coming with us?” Hakyeon asks.

“No, I’m—,” a quick glance at Sanghyuk who averts his eyes, busily examining a crack on the pavement, “this movie made me a little jumpy. It’ll be best if I stay with Sanghyuk now.”

Hakyeon knows exactly that’s only half of the truth, but doesn’t say anything, only waves at the boys, and sits in the passenger seat of Taekwoon’s car.

The ride to Hongbin’s place is short; the one to Hakyeon’s is a little longer. Taekwoon is practically vibrating with energy which is beyond unusual, but Hakyeon doesn’t feel like pestering him about it—he’s exhausted and just wants to sleep.

“Hakyeon-ah,” Taekwoon says when he pulls over in front of Hakyeon’s apartment complex, with that tiny smile still on his face.

“Yeah?”

“Just… good night.”

Hakyeon furrows his brow but says good night to him, thanking him for the ride.

He drags himself into the lift, and then through the corridor to reach his apartment, unsuccessfully trying to unlock his front door with the key to his bicycle lock. He manages eventually, stepping into the dimly lit hallway—he probably left the lights on again—, rubbing his face with a hand as he takes his shoes off, and pads into the living room.

His heart skips a beat.

White socks, dark jeans and a white T-shirt on the couch—in them: Wonshik, smiling so bright it’s almost blinding. There’s a plaster cast on his right arm from his armpit to the palm of his hand, a cloth hanging from his neck, his plastered arm freed from it.

“Hey,” he says, his voice cracking like he’s so tired he could faint in the next second.

Hakyeon’s knees buckle; he needs to sit down on the floor, tears welling up in his eyes, his jaw dropped.

“Nice to see you, too,” Wonshik chuckles, standing up from the couch, shuffling over to Hakyeon, and wrapping his left arm around his middle to tug him up. Once Hakyeon is on his feet again, Wonshik sweeps his way too long fringe out of his teary eyes. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you. Things got tough after my last letter, and then I got that bullet, and everything happened so fast until I found myself standing on the porch without my keys.”

“You called Taekwoon for the keys,” Hakyeon whispers, eyes roaming over Wonshik’s face, noticing that it got smaller, thinner—his cheekbones more prominent, the fine lines under his eyes a little bit deeper, small stubbles showing above his upper lip and on his chin. He looks more gorgeous than ever.

“I did,” Wonshik smiles, hand cupping Hakyeon’s cheek, thumb brushing over the skin, smearing tears. “I thought it would be a nice surprise.”

“I thought you were dead.”

Wonshik’s smile fades, his hand is trembling on Hakyeon’s face. He leans in, resting his forehead against Hakyeon’s with his eyes closed like they always are when he tries very hard not to cry.

“I thought you were dead, and I was dying,” Hakyeon says softly, tipping his face up for a second to give Wonshik’s nose a little nudge with his own. “I felt wronged, I… I thought you just left me here alone… I was so angry. I wanted to die, Wonshik.”

“Don’t say that—“

“It was so painful I actually believed I could die from the pain alone.” Hakyeon’s voice gets weak, shaking so hard it’s barely decipherable.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, I didn’t want to leave you here. I regretted the entire fucking decision on the second day I spent there. I missed you so much— God. So much.”

“Do you have to go back?” Hakyeon asks, tentatively snaking his arms around Wonshik’s middle, holding him like he is merely an apparition. He’s still not sure what he sees is real; that Wonshik— _his_ Wonshik is back and alive and mostly well. It’s simply too good to be true.

“Not now.” Wonshik opens his eyes, pulling back to look at Hakyeon. “In a few months.”

“I’m going, too.”

Wonshik lets out a small laugh. “Why would you?”

“You can never go anywhere without me anymore,” his hold tightens around Wonshik, pulling him as close as possible, his fingers curling into Wonshik’s T-shirt. “Even if you just want to go the grocery store, I’ll go with you.”

“All right,” Wonshik smiles. “You can come to the grocery store with me.”

“But back to the field—“

“Shut up,” Wonshik says kindly. “Don’t talk about this now. Don’t talk at all.”

Wonshik presses his lips on Hakyeon’s, kissing him sweetly, more tenderly than ever before as if he wants to get familiar with how Hakyeon works again, but he couldn’t forget it—his lips move in perfect harmony with Hakyeon’s. His fingers card through Hakyeon’s hair, curling into the strands, holding him by the back of his head, getting breathless.

Hakyeon pulls back after what feels like hours, trying to control his crying, but gives up a few seconds later, resting his head on Wonshik’s shoulder. He presses a kiss to Wonshik’s neck, feeling the other’s fingers caress his hair lovingly, and he can breathe again, the ache in his chest dissolving into the warmth of Wonshik’s body between his arms.

They’re both alive again.

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to talk to me about any of my stories or just vixx in general on [tumblr](http://hongbab.tumblr.com/), [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/hongbab) or [aff](http://www.asianfanfics.com/profile/view/1061753) ♡ please support me on [ko-fi.com](https://ko-fi.com/hongbab) if you can ♡


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